“In 45 ‘Italy found freedom, today it fights to free itself from an invisible evil” The photos

“In 45 ‘Italy found freedom, today it fights to free itself from an invisible evil” © Vastoweb

VAST. Despite the Coronavirus emergency, Vasto was also reminded of the 75th anniversary of the Liberation.

The Mayor Francesco Menna he has declared: “We continue to respect the rules, for our good and for the good of those who work tirelessly against this virus, but today April 25th we will be able to honor, in our homes, the memory of the Liberation which was the principle of our democratic life, the beginning of a story of freedom that, above all today, we can appreciate. ”

The Coronavirus has, in fact, imposed significant changes to our social life and also the celebrations of the Liberation Day have been rethought because of the current restrictive measures.

This morning the Mayor, after two successive moments of personal recollection, at the Monument to the Fallen and at the Cippo in Piazza Brigata Maiella, addressed his institutional greeting to the citizens from the Municipal House.

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These are the words of the Mayor: “Dear Fellow Citizens, Dear Fellow Citizens, Dear Young People,” it is not ceremonies, ornaments, that signify the value of an event, because celebrating it fully means experiencing it first and foremost in your own intimate, in the feeling of your heart, which is by nature free and capable of overcoming any momentary infirmity. ”This beautiful expression seems to me the most suitable to signify an unprecedented Liberation Day, celebrated in ways we never would have liked, but necessary because of the emergency we are experiencing.

On this day, in fact, the party cannot be the shared feeling: how can we not think of the many of our compatriots who died from the epidemic? So many broken stories, torn affections, often in solitude. How not to think about their family members and the communities they were part of? And again, how can we not think of the many “heroes” who have been on the front lines, for weeks, for months, in healthcare facilities, nursing homes, residences for the elderly, in supervising safety and in ensuring food supplies?

In the solitary depositions that I have just carried out, many thoughts have passed through me. One above all: “freedom” is, even more today, the key word, the thread that links these 75 years of our recent history, significantly joining Italy in 1945, which found freedom cut short by Nazi-fascist oppression, and Italy of 2020 that fights to free itself from an invisible evil, capable of bending every dimension of our daily life.

Yesterday as today we feel the weight of a terrifying reality, but at the same time we assume the awareness of being all part of a single community which, strengthened by respect for others, for the inviolable freedom of each, undergoes great personal limitations and collective.

The Italians of that time knew perfectly well that we would come out of that darkness together and, for this reason, history does not force itself to say that the highest and most current meaning of the Liberation Day is the call to participate.

It was, for the first time since the independence movements, a joint assumption of responsibility, a collective call to take on the fate of this country, to commit ourselves all to free it from the moral rubble of a twenty years of fascist dictatorship and from the countless material rubble due to a tragically lost war.

We then embraced other values: those of a pluralist society, of individual and collective rights, of active citizenship. Those of repudiation of war and the search for peace between peoples. Those of women’s liberation and gender equality.

They are our values, the values ​​of the Italian Republic.

And I consider it necessary to underline how the Constituent Fathers themselves, at the foundation of the entire Charter, were able, with incredible strength, to transform the legacy of April 25 into the very purpose of Italy that was reborn. Article 3, in fact, states: “It is the task of the Republic to remove obstacles of an economic and social order, which, by effectively limiting the freedom and equality of citizens, prevent the full development of the human person and the effective participation of all workers in the country’s political, economic and social organization “.

Resistance, with its complexity, is a fruitful and vital source from which to draw moral and civil values.

No population in Italy went as far as Abruzzo in helping not only the local partisans but the many unknown Italian soldiers and the thousands of allied soldiers who fled the crowded German prison camps. It was a real humanitarian resistance, courageous and choral, which would make the people of Abruzzo deserve a Gold Medal.

The great intellectual Alba De Céspedes, partisan and writer, gave us a clear description of the people of Abruzzo from that tormented period: reading it, I trust that each of you will receive a feeling of pride in what has been done, with humanity and generosity, by those who he preceded us: «We entered your homes shyly: a fugitive, a partisan, is a bulky object, a load of risks and compromises. But you did not even mention fear or prudence: immediately your women dried our clothes by the fire, wrapped us in their blankets, mended our worn socks, threw another hand of polenta in the cauldron. […] There was no need for a passport to enter your home. There were English, Romanians, Slovenians, Poles, you did not understand their language but this was not necessary; that they needed help you understood it all the same. What do we not owe you, dear people of Abruzzo? You gave us your best beds, your clothes, for free, if we had no money. ”

These words are splendid.

Then came the deeds of the Majella Brigade, the cornerstone of that experience of rebirth, which started from Abruzzo and ended up in the distant Veneto. A deed that comes from the direct testimony of Antonio Rullo, who fought with this legendary Brigade, alongside Ettore and Domenico Troilo, extraordinary personalities whose memory must always be kept alive.

Dear fellow citizens, at the beginning of my speech, I was talking about that red thread, “freedom”, which effectively unites April 25, 1945 and April 25, 2020: the Italian people have rediscovered what personal sacrifice means for the good of all, to to generously put one’s freedom at the service of one’s freedom.

A “resistant” people have been rediscovered; and, for this reason, I would like to greet you with the words of a man of culture who has marked the cultural and social panorama in the midst of the twentieth and twentieth centuries in a very personal way: Luis Sepulveda. These are words that I wish to entrust to each of you: “I admire those who resist, those who have made the verb ‘resist’ flesh, sweat, blood, and have demonstrated without great gestures that it is possible to live, and live on your feet even in the worst moments.”

We resist! Let’s stay up! Let’s find ourselves better!

Long live the Resistance! Long live the Republic! Long live Italy!
Happy April 25th! ”